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Published: June 12th 2007
"Oi"! Ok, so far our Portuguese....
From a sunny (but today tropical rainy) Pipa, greetings from Mar&Mar !
Finally we made it to the REAL Brazil with samba, beach, capoeira, petit bikinis and of course caipirinha´s at sunset. Quite a different taste compared to the European touch of Argentina and Uruguay ... in terms of weather, food, landscape & the way of travelling (need to be more aware of personal safety).
After the amazing Iguazu Falls, we had one day to spare and decided to visit Itaipu, the world´s largest hydro-electrical power plant (Andreas, even we, non-technical folks, enjoyed it. Thanks for the hint !). We did a specialised tour in which we saw all the different parts of this huge dam, a unique cooperation between Paraguay and Brazil. Wearing a safety helmet and other PPE gave us the impression we were back @ work in our chemical plants again...
Leaving behind a rainy Puerto de Iguazu, we continued our way to Rio de Janeiro, by means of a 22-hours busride. Very comfortable despite the smelly, sweaty guys around us !
Rio greeted us with very nice sunshine and we enjoyed this at the famous Copacabana beach (walking distance from our hostel) with a fresh coconut water ! People watching is a good thing to do on this beach, where there seem to be a lot of beauty & body-obsessed people. Seen and to be seen is key there. It´s a small world after all, Marieke coincidentally bumped into a former Groningen University professor of hers while strolling at the Copa !
Like the coconut, our planned city tour the next day was mainly filled with water too. It was raining cats and dogs and very foggy. We had a hard time recognizing the famous Christ statue, even when standing just in front of it ! At least not a lot of tourist crowds there...
One week ago we finally met up with the group of people with whom we will be travelling 42 days up to Caracas, Venezuela. At least with some of them, since people are dropping out every day ! (it´s not us...)
We are 7 in the group now (tomorrow it will be the 5 of us...), from Australia, UK and Denmark (20 - 35 years old). And some interesting personalities... including our tourguide... talking about the 1st one... he has already been replaced. No comments there...
We stayed one day longer in Rio than foreseen and we made well use of this day by visiting again some of the places included in the city tour, but now with sunshine, totally different ! In the evening we met up with Roberto (thanks for the nice evening!) who suggested to go to a churrascaria (a barbeque restaurant, with waiters serving you all kinds of meat on the table, including grilled chicken hearts !). Funny enough we already had been to this kind of restaurant twice ! Patience is key to paradise there as the best meat is served last.
Despite its image, Rio de Janeiro seemed to us to be a relaxed, laid back city, beautifully situated with mountains and sea just around the corner. We would really consider coming back, especially safety was better than expected.
From Rio we took a short flight to Salvador, a swinging city with an African touch when it comes to music & culture as in the past many African slaves were brought to Salvador. We visited a turtle sanctuary and enjoyed good meals, capoeira shows (capoeira is a combination of martial arts and dancing) and music in the evening.
After a short stop in Olinda, which is another UNESCO world heritage recognized city, we are now in Playa de Pipa, enjoying morning runs and lazy afternoons at the beach whilst watching the dolphins jumping out of the water ! Talking about water, the tropical rains comes and goes fast here which caught us by surprise occassionally.
Finally, Marieke was forced to buy a new bikini (lost the previous one), kind of a depressing activity here when you have to ask for the biggest size in the shop in order to look somewhat decent according to European standards (Brazilian bikinis are VERY petit...).
Tomorrow we will take a nightbus and travel even further up northwards along the coast. Direction, Jericoacoa, apparently one of the most beautiful beaches in Brazil.
So far we manage quite ok with the Portuguese language... by just continuing speaking in Spanish ! We know the key words now.. pineapple-, orange-, mango juice etc...
Hope all is well in Europe, we´re always eager to receive news from ´home´ !
MarMar
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Centa
non-member comment
Portugeze
Hey chicas, recognize your story about portugal. Came back from a week there. Just talking in to spanish was not enough for me, in portugal there is a competition with Spain, something with NL-Germany. So they did not want to understand my spanish (I thought is my spanish that bad ;-)). who was the Professor of Groningen btw? Very curious who is in Brazil!! Take care chicas!